Breaking Bad Wiki talk:Community Portal
Category:Community This is the general discussion page for the wiki! New founders should leave a nice welcome message and encourage new visitors and editors to leave a note to get the conversation started. ---- Hey all Breaking Bad ''fans out there, I'm new to this ''Breaking Bad wiki portal. I wonder if it's active? Anyway, just want to say helo, i'm Ari, from the Netherlands, and i'm a fan of Breaking Bad. I'm currently working on my masters' thesis on Breaking Bad's aesthetics. Would like to hear your opinions on what you think of the show's overall style (cinematography, editing, sound, etc.)? Will be interested to hear your comments. Thanks and can't wait to discuss the 4th season opener this coming July. Cheers, Ari Here's my prediction for seasons 5A and 5B, in the context of the long view of the story, after watching seasons 1-4 back again and poring over the wiki and clues in the faux websites created by the writers. What do you think? Gustavo Fring was the son of a prominent Chilean general in the Marxist Allende regime prior to its overthrow by coup in 1973. Gus then joined his father in the far left resistance movement against the new facist Pinochet regime - the FPMR armed wing of the Communist Party of Chile (PCC). Having a shrewd mind for business, Gus was sent abroad to establish revenue streams to fund the resistance using a small but growing German company specializing in electric power generation, Madrigal Electromotive, as a front for arms smuggling and money laundering. He was possibly German-Chilean as Fring seems to be a German surname. Chile’s strong German ethnic population, would have certainly split along right/left ideological lines during such turbulent times in the Cold War era. Germans were already a significant ethnic group in Chile before many fled there to avoid WWII followed by Nazis fleeing capture. The relationship between former Nazis, Pinochet’s intelligence service (DINA) and the CIA is established with the case of Colonia Dignidad being one of the strongest/darkest examples (Google/Wiki it). It is also well-established that Nixon’s CIA played a major supporting role in the overthrow of the Marxist Allende and the installation of the facist Pinochet and the fight against the Communist-supported resistance. In 1986, an assassination attempt failed to kill Pinochet, resulting in brutal reprisals against the resistance and leading to many key members of the resistance to disperse. Gus and Max, a poor but brilliant young man from the Santiago slums whom Gus had met through the resistance and become very close to, approached the Juarez Mexican drug cartel about a partnership in the methamphetamine trade as a means to increase profit margin. The cartel, still fully committed to the cocaine trafficking business, reacted brutally by murdering Max in front of Gus and only sparing Gus because of his powerful family connections. Mike, a former beat cop, became a CIA operative in Chile in support of the Pinochet regime in the late 70s. After witnessing and being party to atrocities perpetrated against members of the resistance and some innocents, he became disenchanted with the role of the CIA and US in Cold War geopolitics. During his time in Chile, established contact with the resistance and quietly moved from his duties with the CIA to “private investigator” primarily for Madrigal Electromotive. In the wake of the failed attempt to partner with the Juarez cartel and the transition from the Pinochet regime to democratic government in the late 80s, Madrigal Electromotive evolved into a global conglomerate, with US headquarters in Houston, involved in both legal and illicit business activities (chirality), with the illicit elements forming a powerful global crime syndicate. During this time, Los Pollos Hermanos (LPH) was established in the US, based in Albuquerque, as a front for methamphetamine distribution in the southwest. Due to the power and influence of the this crime syndicate, an uneasy truce was established with the Juarez cartel to share distribution of illicit drugs in the region. Gus was installed as the chief executive of the LPH operation with Mike serving as chief of security/intelligence. Madrigal Electromotive would also retain the services of an unscrupulous local attorney, Saul Goodman, and his physician brother, Barry, to handle legal and medical issues as well as dabbling real estate for the company. Through its European criminal resources, Madrigal Electromotive is able to provide a range of capabilities to its players in its US operations (e.g. computer hackers in Belarus to simulate legitimate donations to savewalterwhite.com, funds left to Ted Beneke by his “Great-Aunt Birgit” in Luxembourg). Over the next two decades, the LPH front would be carefully grown into a thriving regional fast food chain with a squeaky-clean reputation, establishing roots in the community and relationships with local law enforcement. Early on, Gus would identify a bright and libertarian-minded young cashier, Gale Boetticher, and provided a scholarship in the name of his murdered partner for his studies leading to an MS degree in organic chemistry specializing in crystallography to groom him as his eventual chief chemist. Also during this time, tension would grow with the Juarez cartel as the methamphetamine market grew. The cartel began to breech standing territorial agreements with its members, particularly the Salamanca family, attempting to setup distribution outside their territory. Meanwhile, in Albuquerque, Walter White, a brilliant but underachieving and professionally jilted chemist working as a high school chemistry teacher, is diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer. Having a pregnant wife and teenage son suffering from cerebral palsy, he feels enormous pressure to provide security for his family after he’s gone. From stories told by his DEA agent brother-in-law, Walt decides manufacture and sell extremely high quality methamphetamine and approaches a former student already involved in the local trade, Jesse Pinkman, for help in distribution. After a failed and dangerous attempt at partnering with the Salamanca family, Walter and Jesse are eventually introduced to Gus by their mutual attorney, Saul Goodman. With some reservations about professionalism and discretion, Gus agrees to hire Walt and Jesse to manufacture their high quality product and provides a superlab to do so.The relationship between Gus and Walt remains turbulent. Gus attempts to install Gale as Walt’s lab assistant so he can learn the process, eventually making Walt and Jesse expendable. Walt resists and is overcome by constant paranoia. He and Jesse eventually decide to kill Gale to protect themselves. Reluctantly, Gus decides to continue working with Walt and Jesse for the time being and enlists Mike to stabilize Jesse’s destructive behavior due to the stress of his predicament. Jesse accompanies Gus and Mike to Mexico under the guise of a new partnership with the cartel, to assassinate the Juarez cartel bosses, thus decapitating the cartel and avenging Max’s murder. This leads to spiraling paranoia for Walt about his prospects. Walt convinces Saul to assist him in a non-lethal poising of Jesse’s girlfriend’s young son in order to drive a wedge between Jesse and Gus. Walt convinces the now elderly Salamanca patriarch, disabled and tortured through the years by Gus because he murdered Max, to become a suicide bomber and assassinate Gus. Now, with its LPH front reeling from Gus’ death, the criminal elements of Madrigal Electromotive must install new management and control damage due to Gus’ association with Salamanca being outed by the assassination and the massive fire at their industrial laundry that housed the superlab set ablaze by Walt and Jesse following Gus’ assassination. Mike returns from Mexico, where he was injured in a shootout following the Gus’ assassination of many of the Juarez cartel’s bosses, and is charged with tying up loose ends. The first order or business is to cleanse LPH of any remnants of its role as a meth distribution front. Next, Madrigal must distance itself from Gus, leaving the impression that the laundry business was the true front for Gus’ meth business and that his death was retaliation for his assassination of the Juarez cartel bosses. Realizing that he is one of those loose ends, Walt, forces Saul to arrange a meeting with Madrigal and Mike where he convinces them to allow him to establish a new manufacture and distribution front, possibly through his newly purchased car wash, with him assuming much of the risk. Hank, Walt’s DEA agent brother-in-law, already hot on the trail of Gus and the laundry, still can’t make things add up when the blue meth doesn’t disappear from the street. Under the stress of a broken home, high school and his disability Walt Jr. spirals downward into an addiction to prescription pain killers that began the day he discovered Walt beaten up by Jesse and taking some the medication left open on his night stand (cap off one scene then back on in the next scene). Jesse, still suspicious about Brock’s poisoning, eventually focuses on Saul as the prime suspect, then confronts him and forces Saul to give up Walt as the mastermind. Hank’s continued investigations along with APD’s investigation of Ted Beneke’s accidental death and curious timing and circumstances of his tax payment leads him to finally put the pieces together and zero in on Walt. Nearly simultaneously, Hank and Jesse descend upon Walt and Mike, now acting as Walt’s protector, resulting in a brutal end game. Jesse kills Saul and Walt and is then killed by Mike who is then killed by Hank, the only one still standing at the end. Walt’s family has managed to distance themselves enough from the operations that Hank is able to make good on his promise to take care of them by absolving them of any responsibility in Walt’s actions. Skylar, Walt Jr., Holly, Marie and Hank are the only main characters to survive and move forward together as a damaged but surviving family. Despite all his efforts, Walt fails to provide. Whitingtoler 18:16, June 21, 2012 (UTC)